By Róise Collins

A VIRTUAL power plant has begun operating at the former army barracks in Lifford, offering energy resilience to Donegal County Council’s headquarters.

The €1.5 million pilot initiative, funded under Interreg, works by connecting multiple small energy systems and operating them as a utility-scale power station to balance electricity demand and production locally.

The virtual power plant model has been designed to enable the site to run in ‘island’ mode in the event of a power outage or disconnection from the grid, offering up to two days off-grid.

At the beginning of this year, Storm Éowyn tore through Donegal, leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power for days. This exposed the county’s energy vulnerability.

During such power outages, the council buildings would have relied on diesel generators, but this project offers an alternative in the form of battery-stored power.

With the high capacity battery installed last week, the council hopes to start seeing results in real-time.

Head of Information Systems at Donegal County Council, Siobhán Foy told a Strategic Policy Committee meeting on Thursday that they hope to produce data-driven evidence to show that the model can deliver the resilience, cost savings and climate change impacts they expect.

“In Donegal we naturally face energy challenges in terms of weather and fossil fuels dependency, which this will address.”

“This power plant will offer us energy balancing and some degree of grid independence when we need it most,” said Ms Foy.

By using renewable energy more effectively, the project aims to help the council meet Ireland’s climate targets and reduce pressure on the national electricity grid.

The new system’s software and weather forecasting elements help manage how much energy is stored, when it is stored and when it should be released back into the grid.

This will enable County House in Lifford to reduce or shift energy consumption during peak demand periods by switching to battery power at those times.

In turn, this will have benefits such as reducing pressure on the grid, lowering emissions and providing cost savings.

If successful, the project could be replicated in other public and community buildings across Donegal.